An absolutely dated record of climate change over the last three glacial–interglacial cycles from Chinese loess deposits

Abstract Chinese loess-paleosol sequences have long been regarded as the continental counterpart of deep-sea sediments in terms their record Quaternary glacial–interglacial cycles. However, absolute chronologies for older than ca. 130 ka on Loess Plateau are scarce. We conducted first high-resolution luminescence dating, extending back to 350 ka, classical Luochuan loess section central Plateau. Bacon age-depth modeling ages was used obtain an age framework. The results indicate that orbital timescales, accumulation at continuous over last three new framework resolves discrepancies between orbitally tuned models several boundaries and provides evidence supporting reassignment Marine Isotope Stage 8/9 boundary from 300 280 ka. Our also suggest published astronomical timescales deposits ~2.6 m.y. probably broadly reliable, related regional global climatic interpretations.